An Old West adventure

There are two schools of thought when it comes to just how wild the Wild West was back in the post-Civil War days. Some folks claim it wasn’t as lawless as Sam Peckinpah would have it, while others cling to the notion that it really was as bad as folks said it was. In The Outcasts, Kathleen Kent—known previously for historical novels set in colonial New England—chooses the...

Behind the Book by Kathleen Kent

One of the benefits of writing a novel based on a well-documented historical figure is the wealth of material available to help with character development. My first novel, The Heretic’s Daughter [read our review], was based on Martha Carrier, my grandmother back nine generations—an accused witch hanged in 1692 who Cotton Mather referred to as The Queen of...

The American Colonies provide the backdrop for an absorbing prequel

Kathleen Kent has a unique talent for early American storytelling, as proven by the smash success of her 2008 debut novel, The Heretic’s Daughter. Kent is back with a prequel to her bestseller, which digs into Colonial Massachusetts after the English Civil War. The Wolves of Andover, a story of love and British-American mystery, embodies the struggles of an entire young nation through the...

Caught in the madness of Salem, 1692

Even now, no one really knows what caused the atrocities known as the Salem Witch Trials. In 1692, more than 150 people—mostly women—were arrested and accused of witchery. Historians have blamed everything from Puritan misogyny, to landlust, to ergot poisoning from a fungus that grows on rye and can cause psychosis. Kathleen Kent's debut, The Heretic's Daughter, a novelization of a...